


Abeilles à abeilles, poussière à poussière

by mrsilikemyself



Series: single parent indiefrnk [1]
Category: frnkiero andthe cellabration
Genre: F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Mentions of alcohol and smoking, Past Character Death, changed the name of the iero's kids, not the greatest new names tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:05:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsilikemyself/pseuds/mrsilikemyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank moves during the winter. The house they bought - the house he now owns alone - is big and cold and full of spiders. He's so tired though, he doesn't even have enough strength to freak out over them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abeilles à abeilles, poussière à poussière

**Author's Note:**

> This is my secret santa gift for Thomas @demigirlpatrickstump on tumblr. It's also his fault, no matter what the screenshots says, you started it, you sad motherfucker.  
> Originally I had planned for it to be... Gayer, but I didn't have time so there you go, nearly 2000 of me babling about single parent indie frnk.  
> I want to thank Thomas and Jocelyn and everyone else in the net. Also special thanks to Mom and Gremma for being the best admins ever and organising this secret santa, and Noor for helping me write this and coming up with the title. I love all of you so so much, you're the best thing to have ever happened to me.
> 
> Also yes, if there's any errors please point them out to me. English is not my first language and this is my first work. Thank you very much.

Frank moves during the winter. The house they bought - the house he now owns alone - is big and cold and full of spiders. He's so tired though, he doesn't even have enough strength to freak out over them.

He spends the first days dozing off on the old sofa near the fireplace and walking around at odd hours, looking for what needs to be fixed, and it all makes him feel kind of like a ghost. Then he revises his enormous list of remodelations and organises it into three big groups: Immediate Work, Could Wait A While, and She Would Have Liked It. 

It only makes him more sad.

***

He calls his girls twice a day and feels like a giant douche because he should be there, with them, crying into his pillow when Kerry falls asleep at last but he can't. 

Instead, he buys a rooter and makes it work and looks up where the nearest garden center is. He makes a new list of what he wants to buy and doodles small flowers on the borders while he skypes Peach and Rose. They tell him about school and what their grandma cooked for them and that they miss him. His mom tells him about Kerry and how much he's growing, he's already crawling. She doesn't ask him to come back and Frank is so grateful for her.

***

Frank finds the dog a week in, when he goes to the small town nearly an hour away for more ramen.

She's an ugly, old thing, her tongue always sticking out and her fur coarse and patchy in some places. It's kind of love at first sight, and she follows him around, patiently waiting for him to finish his errands.

When Frank opens his car to go back to the house, he lets her in with him and they drive back in silence. He asks the girls what they want to name her and they say Sweet Pea. It doesn't fit much, he thinks, but he can see it growing on him, so he laughs and doesn't question it.

***

Evan comes to visit in his third week. They drink beer and talk softly all day. Sweet Pea even deems Evan acceptable enough to sit on his lap. At one point Frank shows him his lists and explains what they wanted to do, what he would like to do, too. Evan listens in silence, his fingers slowly curling and uncurling the borders of the papers.

When night comes, Frank prepares his first real meal in his new kitchen and Evan declares that he's getting the sofa, Iero, I'm not sleeping on the floor while I'm visiting. Frank can't stop smiling.

They talk until late when they finish eating, and it feels more like a sleepover than reality.

At five a.m., Evan turns around and says "You know? I think I know a guy that could help."

***

The next weekend, Frank decides to go for a walk in the forest while Evan's friend starts throwing down walls. It's been a long week, full of meetings with architects and runs to the town hall to registrate forms he didn't even know where to print because his house is old and full of workers, not a single printer in sight. His head hurts. 

The forest is cold but alive. Frank can hear the birds singing, see the fluttering of wings on the corner of his eye. A mouse crosses just before him and he smiles. He feels more real, too, somehow. Frank had forgotten how much he liked this solitude, how the fact that the backyard gave place to this was what finally made them choose this house over commodities like heating or tap water.

He remembers then what else was back here. He starts to run, nearly tripping once or twice, and finds it fast: a lake in his backyard. A bark of laughter escapes him. She had announced it was stupid and that she wanted it immediately when the real estate agent had told them.

It's beautiful. The water, clear on the shore, turns dark blue gradually as it deepens; the small, polished rocks that form the beach shine under the winter sun; and the old fishing cabin with its barely standing dock looks, well… It has possibilities.

His smile brightens. Maybe one more trip to the town hall wouldn't be so bad.

***

Zanetti's Emporium, whose owner specializes in "American antiques and punk music", or so its website says, is the closest furniture store he can find online. It's a twenty-minute drive to an old house - still twenty minutes away from the nearest school and shit, what is he going to do with the kids, there's no bus - with a small bell that dings when he opens the door. 

The inside is full to the brim: boxes of vinyls and other trinkets cover the floor, and the mirrors on the walls - enormous, shiny things with golden frames - make the mess of chairs and tables and sofas and other stuff he can't name seem never ending. It looks like there's no clear organization, pieces of different years and styles piled up together, and there's also some sort of soft, anti-government song playing in the background. 

Frank likes it and so does Sweet Pea, the little stowaway, who fucking darts through the dog door and decides that yes, the mauve sofa by the closest window is perfect to pee on. Thankfully, the store manager finds her to be pretty charming and doesn't kick them out. He even laughs, a high-pitched sound that crinkles his eyes, and asks if he wants some coffee.

His name's Ray, he tells Frank while he prepares a pot, and he has worked here since he was 16. He's funny and friendly and very passionate about guitar solos, and Frank forgets he was here for a reason until Ray asks.

That afternoon, he leaves with notes and notes of measurements, his phone storage full of photos of regal chairs and sturdy tables and old sofas he would like to repair the upholstery of, and, yeah. Maybe a friend too.

***

Sometimes Frank has bad days where he spends a lot of time staring at the ceiling with Sweet Pea, way too conscious of the empty space next to him and the silent house and their kids, so far away, so alone.  


Sometimes he goes for a walk and gets distracted looking at the sky and his finger itch for a cigarette and he remembers Jamia and going for walks like this with her and her asking him if he really needed to smoke, why would you smoke if nothing good will come out of it?, and him kissing her cheek.

Sometimes the most stupid things remind him of her - a leaf, a cereal brand, a smell, a fucking colour, this goddamn house they were supposed to live in as a big, happy family - and it's hard, sometimes.

She's everywhere where he looks, and she's everywhere in his body and mind and soul, and he knows that that is so because it was true love but in the books they never tell you how true love hurts, only how beautiful it was. And a little tear slithers out, and more, and more, until Frank is just laying on his side under the covers, his face one of pure anguish and his teeth clenched, trying to stop the faucet that his tear ducts have become.

So, yeah. Sometimes he has bad days

***

One day he ends up drunk at the top of the old barn. It has a hole in its ceiling and it's perfect to stare at the stars, how did he not notice before? Jamia liked the stars but she preferred it when he talked to her about them.

The next morning, with a surprisingly light hangover, he decides to keep the hole.

***

Frank calls his mom a lot, he always has. At first, it was to ask to stay at a friends house and play video games. Then, he started to ask her to come get him from house parties, then punk shows, then the flower orchard, too.

She was his source of cooking advice and laundry tips when he moved out.

He called her when he met Jamia, when he went on their first date together, when they adopted the first dog. He went to visit when he asked Jamia to marry him. She kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair and did the same for Jamia. It was a nice day.

He called her during his wedding because she was late, she had taken a wrong turn.

She was staying with them when Rose and Peach were born - she bonded with Jamia's mom over having tiny wanna-be punks as kids -, Kerry too, and he invited her to come see houses with them when they wanted to move out.

He didn't call when Jamia died, Evan did, after calling his own mom. That wasn't a nice day.

He called her to explain he wanted to move out, that they had to, actually, because the lease of their place was about to be terminated, but the house they had bought was old and not ready to live in so, please, please, could she take in the kids? 

She said yes and Frank breathed in deep.

***

Frank meets Derek a Friday, when he goes back to Zanetti's Emporium. His house is so close to being finished now, and he gushes about it while Ray makes coffee again. Then the door opens with a dring of the bell and a voice yells out for Ray. It's a short man, shorter than Frank even. His smile is bright and his cheeks rosy from the cold. Ray calls him boss, so he must be Mr Zanetti. 

When Mr Zanetti notices that Ray is not alone, he stops his speech on the antique knobs he found on his morning flea market run and Ray presents him as Derek. 

Four furniture runs, one flea market casual meeting, and three barbecues after - plus some good beer -, Derek is oh my god, you fucking dork.

And he has one more friend.

***

The house is finished just when spring starts. The workers leave two weeks before and then it’s just Frank, Ray, and Derek. They put together the big sofa last and just sit in silence.  
“It’s… It’s kind of empty, right? The space over the fire.” blurts Frank, out of nowhere. Then he breathes in. “It’s, it’s not only the space over the fire that’s empty. I think, I think the house is kind of empty…”  
The silence stretches as they stare at the wall. 

Frank breathes out before getting up and grabbing his phone. He dials his mom and waits for her to pick up with his heart in his throat.  
“Hello, mom? I think, maybe… I missed you, and the kids and uh… Would you like to visit?”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @dadtoro


End file.
